Method and apparatus for content presentation in association with a communication connection

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus are provided for presenting content to a caller and/or a called party in association with a telephone call or other communication connection. Content may be presented pre-ring (before the called party&#39;s telephone rings), in-call, and/or post-call, and may be related to a party participating in the call or may be related to a third party. Presentation of specified content may include assisted sharing, wherein both parties view the same content and one guides or assists the other. A received call may be split into signal and voice channels, with the signal channel used to notify a call controller of the call and the voice channel being directed to an agent selected by the call controller to handle the call.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/951,351, filed Nov. 24, 2015 (the '351 application). The'351 application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/327,325, filed Jul. 9, 2014 and issued Feb. 23, 2016 as U.S.Pat. No. 9,270,820 (the '325 application). The '325 application is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/041,879, filed Sep.30, 2013 and issued Aug. 12, 2014 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,804,930 (the '879application). The '879 application is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 12/563,112, filed Sep. 18, 2009 and issued Nov. 5,2013 as U.S. Pat. No. 8,577,000 (the '112 application). The '112application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No.61/167,105, filed Apr. 6, 2009. The preceding patents, patentapplications, and provisional application are incorporated herein byreference.

BACKGROUND

This invention relates to the fields of telecommunications and computersystems. More particularly, a method and apparatus are provided forpresenting content to a caller and/or a called party before, duringand/or after a communication session (e.g., a telephone call) betweenthe parties.

Calls from or to a mobile telephone are typically accompanied by minimaldisplay content. For example, when placing a call, the caller may simplysee a dialer screen used to enter a telephone number, or to select anumber or contact to be dialed. When receiving a call, a called partymay see the caller's telephone number (or some other display if thenumber is blocked or unknown) or a name of the caller (if the caller'stelephone number is stored in the called party's contacts), but littleelse.

Although this minimal information may be sufficient for the basicpurpose of identifying who is being called or who has originated a call,it fails to deliver the type of multimedia experience many people havecome to expect in the electronic age. Just as computer systems haveevolved from textual operating systems (e.g., DOS or Disk OperatingSystem) to complex graphical operating systems (e.g., iOS®, Android™,Microsoft Windows®), the display capabilities of mobile telephones haveevolved in a similar manner.

Although mobile telephone applications that operate independently oftelephone calls have been developed to take advantage of the telephones'richer display capabilities, such as offline games, photography and GPS(Global Positioning System) navigation, applications that make andreceive calls or that operate during a call have not. Therefore, thereis a need for methods and apparatuses for enriching the experience of aperson making or receiving a call.

SUMMARY

In some embodiments, a method and apparatus are provided for presentingcontent to a caller and/or a called party in association with atelephone call or other communication connection. In these embodiments,content may be presented pre-ring (e.g., before the called party'stelephone rings), in-call (e.g., during the call) and/or post-call(e.g., after one or both parties have hung up).

Content presented to a party may be related to that party, another partyparticipating in the call (or other communication connection), or athird party (e.g., an advertiser that paid to have its contentpresented). Thus, rights to present content to parties engaging in acall may be auctioned to various advertisers and other organizations,and a party to a call may receive content that is or is not associatedwith any purpose or party to the call.

In some embodiments, presented content may be actuable (i.e., includeone or more actuable controls), to allow a caller to change thedestination or routing of a call, add or remove a party to/from thecall, take advantage of an offer presented to him in the content, redeema coupon, schedule or queue a subsequent call, respond to a query fromanother party, initiate some other desired action, etc.

In some embodiments, a person's ability to search for a desireddestination party's contact information (e.g., telephone number) or toinitiate a call to the party without knowing its number is greatlyenhanced. In these embodiments, the person may initiate a direct orindirect search of any number of contact lists, telephone directories,and/or other databases, including lists maintained on his device and/oroff his device—such as at a central call server or a third partyrepository.

Such a search may be conducted via keyword, so that as the person enterscharacters describing the target destination (e.g., by name, bycategory), the search is automatically updated and narrowed as thecharacters are entered. Results of a search may be filtered orprioritized based on the person's profile (e.g., with contacts known tothat person having relatively high priority) and/or by a general profile(e.g., based on which numbers/contacts have been used most often or mostrecently by other people that conducted similar searches, and/or withrespect to some other relevant or measurable attribute).

In some embodiments, one party to a call (e.g., the caller or a calledparty) provides some type of assistance to another party, regardingoperation of the other party's communication device, operation of aprogram executing on the other party's communication device, obtaining agood or service, repairing or maintaining a good, supporting a service,making a diagnosis, retrieving desired information, or performing someother action or pertaining to some other subject matter. The one partymay be associated with a particular organization (e.g., an organizationthat sold or that supports the device, a retail or wholesaleorganization), or may be a provider of concierge-type services, assistedshopping, or some other service to any number of other parties.

In association with the one party's assistance to the other party, theother party may be required to provide and/or confirm informationregarding payment (e.g., for the one party's assistance, for a good orservice or information that was ordered or obtained), such as a paymentmechanism (e.g., a credit card, an electronic wallet), an accountnumber, and so on. The other party's satisfaction of a paymentrequirement may be completed before, during, and/or after a relatedcall, or may be performed as a separate event not associated with aparticular communication connection. A “payment” may be a traditionalform of payment using currency (including virtual currency and/orcryptocurrency), a credit/debit device (e.g., credit card, debit card),or a prepaid account, and/or may involve barter, exchange, equity, debt,or other type of legal transaction.

In some embodiments, real-time call control is applied when thecommunication connection is a telephone call from a caller (e.g., aprivate individual) to an organization represented by multiple agents.The call's control channel is diverted to a call controller, callserver, or other entity, which determines a suitable termination point(e.g., a particular agent) for the call, and the call's voice channel isrouted accordingly. During the agent's conversation with the caller, theagent may employ a data connection that allows the agent to obtaininformation from the call controller and/or other sources, regarding thecaller, a transaction conducted with the caller, a good or servicedesired by the caller, a complaint from the caller, etc.

In some embodiments, a suitable agent or representative for engaging ina communication connection (e.g., a telephone call) is selected based oncharacteristics of the agent, the agent's employer/organization, and/oranother party to the connection (e.g., language, gender, location), andpossibly a topic of their communication (e.g., a particular good orservice, information desired by the other party). Selection of the agentmay occur as part of a method of providing real-time call control.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a communication environment in which someembodiments described herein may be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram demonstrating establishment of a telephonecall and associated presentation of content, according to someembodiments.

FIGS. 3-8 demonstrate content that may be presented on a communicationdevice of a caller and/or a called party before, during and/or after atelephone call, according to some embodiments.

FIG. 9 is a flow diagram demonstrating the presentation of content to acaller and/or a called party in association with a telephone call,according to some embodiments.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram demonstrating the presentation of content to acaller in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of hardware apparatus for facilitatingpresentation of content in association with a telephone call, accordingto some embodiments.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of a call server for facilitatingpresentation of content in association with a telephone call, accordingto some embodiments.

FIG. 13 depicts the collection of payment information from a payor,according to some embodiments.

FIG. 14 depicts control of a telephone call in real-time or nearreal-time, according to some embodiments.

FIG. 15 is a flow chart demonstrating a method of performing real-timecall control, with selection of a suitable agent, according to someembodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description is presented to enable any person skilled inthe art to make and use the embodiments disclosed herein, and isprovided in the context of one or more applications and theirrequirements. Various modifications will be readily apparent to thoseskilled in the art, and the general principles defined herein may beapplied to other embodiments and applications without departing from thescope of the following description. Thus, the embodiments provided hereare to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles andfeatures disclosed herein.

Introduction

In some embodiments, a method and apparatus are provided for presentingcontent before, during and/or after a telephone call or othercommunication connection. The call or communication connection is notlimited to only two parties. For example, it may be a group call or chatinvolving three or more parties.

The content is displayed on a device that initiates or receives the callor connection, if the device's display is capable of displaying richcontent; otherwise, it may be displayed on an associated computingdevice. In these embodiments, the displayed content may be selectedbased on an identity or a characteristic of the caller or the calledparty, may be relevant to a purpose or nature of the call, or may beselected by an entity that paid to have the selected content presented.

For example, for a telephone call between friends or acquaintances, acaller or called party may be presented with content drawn from a socialmedia or other distributed electronic presence of the other party (e.g.,Twitter™, Skype®, Snapchat®, Instagram®, WhatsApp®, LinkedIn®, MySpace®,Facebook®, Flickr®, Google+™, Google Voice™, Apple iMessage®, Flickr®)or from private storage (e.g., the friend's computing device). Or, hemay be shown recent electronic mail, other communication(s) involvingthe friend (e.g., his or her latest tweet on Twitter), or other contentthe friend is willing to share. In some embodiments, people may assemblecontent for the specific purpose of having it presented to another partyin association with a telephone call or other communication connection.

For a telephone call with an organization (e.g., a merchant, abusiness), an advertisement or special offer from that entity (or froman associate or a competitor of that entity) may be presented (e.g., avideo ad, a social media ad, a Google AdSense Ad™, a yellow page ad), ora menu or list of services, directions or location information,information regarding a current or recent transaction, etc.

Content presented before, during, and/or after a telephone call may beaccompanied by one or more controls for taking action, such as seeingmore content, navigating to a particular web page or web site,downloading content, ordering a good or service, adding another party tothe call, re-routing or aborting the call in favor of a differentdestination, sharing the content displayed on one party's device (orsome other content) with another party, terminating the sharing orpresentation of content, or initiating other action enabled by thecontent.

As used herein, a “service” related to content presented to a party(e.g., a service ordered by a caller) is intended to encompass not onlyrepetitive activity (e.g., a subscription to a publication orinformation feed, telephone service, or some other utility), but alsosingle or individual activities or solutions as well as a combination ofa single activity and repeated activities. For example, someillustrative services include diagnosing a problem from an image orvideo of mechanical or electrical equipment (e.g., an engine, acomputer), making a medical diagnosis from a suitable image (e.g., animage generated using radiography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI,ultrasound, tomography, or thermography), providing input to a 3-Dprinter, and analyzing a video or image of a scene (e.g., a crime scene,a crowd of faces, a view from an unattended camera in a naturalhabitat). A service may also, or instead, involve identifying orproposing one or more solutions to a specified problem or a conditiondepicted in an image or video.

Determination of what content to present to a party is made by a callcontroller. In embodiments described herein, a controller for aparticular telephone connection may be the caller, a called party, acall center configured to process content in association with atelephone call, or some other third party. The decision of what topresent may be made in real-time, or may be predetermined.

For example, a commercial message (e.g., an advertisement, an offer) maybe pre-selected for presentation to some number of callers to aparticular telephone number. Merchants or other organizations may payfor the opportunity to have their selected content presented to a calleror called party, even if the paying organization is not a party to thecall.

In some embodiments, content selected by one party for presentation toanother party before, during, and/or after a call between the partiesmay include some or all content presented (e.g., displayed, played) onthe one party's communication device. For example, the one party mayshare his or her display, or a portion of the display (e.g., onewindow), so that both parties can mutually enjoy the content. Also, orinstead, either party may assist the other with manipulation orunderstanding of the content or an associated application, makerecommendations regarding the content (e.g., which of multiple productsor services to purchase), assist with directions to a destination, etc.

During the sharing of content, the shared content may be manipulated(e.g., to select menu options, to browse or co-browse), annotated,highlighted, or otherwise affected by either or both parties. Thus, oneparty may highlight for the other which controls or menu options toactuate in order to achieve a particular goal, may actuate thosecontrols for the other party, may make notations or marks on thecontent, may overlay the other party's display with other content (e.g.,to provide a sample view of the result of actuating a particularcontrol), may browse to additional content, etc.

As indicated above, embodiments are not limited to communicationconnections or content-sharing involving only two parties. Thus, contentmay be selected by one party for presentation to multiple other parties,or vice versa, multiple parties may observe or share content presented(or residing) on one party's device, and so on. Also, a given partyparticipating in a communication connection may be an individual or (arepresentative of) an organization, and different parties may selectcontent to be presented or shared, and/or control thepresentation/sharing of the content, at different times.

Although some terms used herein reflect telephonic communications, suchas “caller,” “called party,” “telephone,” “call,” “pre-ring,” “in-call,”and “post-call,” one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate thatmethods of presenting content (or controlling presentation of content)in association with other types of communication connections (e.g., chatsessions, group chat sessions, video calls) are also within the scope ofthis disclosure. Terms encountered herein thus have differentconnotations depending on the types of communications being conducted.

Content Presentation in Association with a Telephone Call

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a communication environment in which content maybe presented in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments. In FIG. 1, caller telephone or device 110 is used to placea call to a called party at called party telephone or device 150. Callserver 130 acts as a call controller to manage the presentation ofcontent on the caller's device or telephone and/or the called party'sdevice or telephone in association with the call.

In FIG. 1, each telephone is capable of supporting parallel data andvoice channels. A voice channel between caller telephone 110 and calledparty telephone 150 may be established through the PSTN (Public SwitchedTelephone Network), one or more telephone carrier's networks, otherpublic/private networks such as the Internet (e.g., for VoIP calls),etc. Specifically, a telephone or other electronic/communication devicedescribed herein as participating in a communication connection (e.g., acall) supports traditional telephone connections (e.g., through POTS orPlain Old Telephone System) and/or digital telephony (e.g., VoIP). Inillustrative embodiments, a party's communication device may be asmartphone, a tablet, or other mobile (or stationary) device havingtelephony capability.

Data channels to/from a party's telephone may be established using EvDO(Evolution Data Optimized or Evolution Data Only), UMTS (UniversalMobile Telecommunications System), HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink PacketAccess or High-Speed Downlink Protocol Access), LTE (Long TermEvolution), VoLTE (Voice over LTE), and/or other communication protocolsand links capable of carrying digital data. The data channels are routedvia call server 130, and are used to convey content to the telephonesand to convey other data to the call server as necessary (e.g., toupload data from a telephone, activate a control within presentedcontent).

Caller telephone 110 hosts any number of applications, applets,plug-ins, or other collections of executable program code. Illustrativecode that may be installed on the caller telephone includes browser 112for presenting and navigating content, one or more other applications inaddition to browser 112 (e.g., a game, a chat utility), call processor114 (e.g., a dialer application) for processing an outgoing or incomingcall, and optional block/allow list 116.

Call processor 114 comprises logic for detecting and/or controllingtelephone events (e.g., dialing of a number, outgoing call ringing,incoming call ringing, outgoing or incoming call connected) and forusing the data channel to receive content to be presented and to submitdata to the call server and/or other destination (e.g., another party tothe call). Call processor 114 may comprise logic that hooks into atelephone dialer application and can control how a call is handled. Or,the call processor may comprise logic that replaces or supersedes adevice's native dialer application.

In some embodiments, call processor 114 may delay signaling of a voicecall from caller telephone 110 to the caller's telephone serviceprovider, in order to delay establishment of the voice channel. The callprocessor may do this automatically or based on instructions from thecall server. Similarly, ringing at a called party's telephone may bedelayed.

For example, calls placed to certain numbers or to certain types ofparties (e.g., merchants, other organizations) may be delayed whilecontent is selected and transmitted to the caller's telephone and/or adevice operated by the called party. A timer may be displayed on thetelephone and/or the caller may be able to terminate the delay and makethe call proceed immediately. Thus, a delay may be fixed or may beaborted by the affected party.

A call processor may also comprise logic for performing keyword-basedlookups, or may be configured to invoke similar logic that executesseparate from the call processor. For example, when a caller enters part(or all) of the name of a person or organization that she wishes to call(or a partial telephone number), the keyword logic will search thecalled party's telephone for matching contacts.

The call processor, or other logic, may also contact a central location(e.g., call server 130) to initiate a keyword-based search on a largertelephone directory. Thus, a search for a destination party may beautomatically conducted on the caller's telephone and/or off the deviceat a central location (e.g., call server 130) or a third partydirectory. As the caller enters additional characters, the searchresults are narrowed accordingly, and may be prioritized based on thecaller's previous interaction with some of the contacts, based on whichdestination parties other callers selected in similar searches, based onthe caller's present location, based on fees paid by merchants forpriority listing, etc.

Other software may be installed on a party's communication device toalter or enhance the presentation of media. For example, a set of APIs(Application Programming Interfaces) may be provided to allow injectionof particular types of content. The APIs may be used to facilitatepresentation of content in association with a telephone call and/orwithout any association with a telephone call. However, in someembodiments, a person's communication device need not be modified in anyway in order to receive and display content before, during, and/or aftera call.

In the illustrated embodiments, caller telephone 110 (and/or call server130) automatically blocks or rejects calls attempted between telephone110 and telephone numbers (and/or people and organizations) identifiedin a block list. Additionally, or alternatively, an allow list may bemaintained to specifically identify telephone numbers with which callertelephone 110 is permitted to be connected (e.g., all entries in acontact list or telephone directory maintained on a party's telephone).In yet other embodiments, a single combined block/allow list may bemaintained to identify target telephone numbers and indicate whethercalls with those numbers are blocked or allowed. A list of allowedand/or blocked telephone numbers or other identifiers of destinationparties (e.g., screen names, chat handles, IP addresses, URLs) may belimited or expanded based on parameters such as the location of thecaller and/or a called party, current time (e.g., at the caller's orcalled party's location), available communication bandwidth, and so on.

Block/allow lists may be maintained on a user's telephone and/or at acall controller or call server. A block/allow list maintained ontelephone 110 (i.e., block/allow list 116) may be considered a “local”list, while a list maintained on a call controller (e.g., block/allowlist 132) may be considered a “central” or “global” list.

In some embodiments, a block/allow list (or other filter) may be used toscreen calls to/from malicious telephone numbers or entities. Forexample, calls received from telephone numbers known to be associatedwith telemarketers, spammers (e.g., entities that spam via SMS or ShortMessaging Service), pranksters and/or other undesirables may be blockedautomatically (or after querying the called party to identify the callas possibly or certainly being from an undesired party).

Illustratively, a global list may be maintained to identifytelemarketers and spammers, especially those that call nationally orregionally. A local list may be maintained to block calls frompranksters, people who have made harassing calls and/or other partiesfrom whom calls are not desired.

A called party may identify a caller as malicious (or, alternatively,not malicious) during or after a telephone call from that caller, byactivating a control on her telephone. For example, during or after acall from a previously unknown caller, content may be presented to thecalled party to ask her if the caller is a telemarketer or harasser (orshould otherwise be blocked), or if the caller should be added to hercontact list. Choosing to add a previously unknown party or number toher contact list may cause the call server to interrogate the caller'stelephone or other data source to retrieve a contact card, if one hasbeen prepared for sharing.

In some embodiments, caller device 110 may include additional componentsor executable code for performing other functions, without exceeding thescope of the present disclosure. For example, a telephone may alsoinclude one or more storage components for storing, among other things,contacts, user preferences, content to be presented on the telephone orto be transmitted to another party for presentation on their device,etc.

Locally stored content may be quickly presented to a user without havingto wait for receipt of the content from call controller 130. Such storedcontent may be selected for storage and/or presentation randomly, basedon an identity of the a party or parties within a contact list stored onthe telephone, according to an agreement with a third party (e.g., anadvertiser) and the call server or call controller, etc.

Called party telephone/device 150 may be configured similarly to callertelephone/device 110 (e.g., with a browser, a call processor, ablock/allow list). In some embodiments, when a call is being initiatedfrom caller telephone 110 to called party telephone 150, call server 130may query the called party's telephone to determine if it possesses anycontent that the called party would like to have presented to thecaller. Such content may then be transferred before, during, and/orafter the call. Similarly, content from caller telephone 110 may becopied to called party telephone 150.

When a user's telephone is unable to display content chosen forpresentation to that user in association with a telephone call, thecontent may instead be presented via a different device.

For example, and as shown in FIG. 1, a called party (or a caller) mayoperate an associated computing device (e.g., a desktop computer, alaptop computer, a personal digital assistant, a netbook computer). Thecomputing device may be registered with a call controller (e.g., callserver 130) before or during a call (e.g., by IP address or othernetwork address).

When the call controller determines that it cannot present pre-ring,in-call, and/or post-call content on called party telephone 150, it willinstead transmit it to the associated computing device. The callcontroller may determine that it cannot send content to telephone 150based on the type of telephone or the telephone number (e.g., alandline), because the telephone connection lacks a data channel,because the device is registered in the called party's user profile,etc.

A party's associated computing device may be coupled to call server 130by a network connection that traverses one or more public or privatedata networks (e.g., the Internet, an intranet). To register a computingdevice, a party may operate the computing device to navigate a browserto a registration site or page. There, the party may identify one ormore telephone numbers and associate them with the computing device sothat when a call is placed to or from one of the telephone numbers,content will be delivered to the computing device instead of thetelephone.

Call server 130 comprises central or global block/allow list 132 forscreening a call to determine whether it should be placed and/or whethercontent should be presented in association with the call. The callserver also includes media selection logic 134 for selecting content tobe displayed on a caller's or called party's communication or computingdevice. Call processor 136 is configured to receive or establish data(and/or voice) channels with caller telephone 110 and/or called partytelephone 150 via virtually any data protocol and media.

Central call processor 136 (or some other component of call server 130)may thus incorporate some or all functionality of a local call processor(e.g., call processor 114), to support or enable delayed establishmentof calls and/or other communication connections between devices, toperform lookups of contacts, to screen calls with a block/allow list(e.g., list 132), to select content to be presented on one or moredevices (e.g., using logic 134), to transmit content to be presented ona device, etc.

Database(s) 140 are configured to store data regarding subscribers andtheir communication/computing devices, content that may be presented onsuch devices, information regarding advertisers and/or other thirdparties that may provide content, factors for determining or selectingcontent to be presented for a particular call, etc. Call server 130 mayalso expose various APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to allowthird parties to provide media for presentation in association with atelephone call, and/or other logic for retrieving or obtaining suchcontent from a third party.

A call server or call controller according to other embodiments may beconfigured to perform a subset or a superset of the operations describedherein, and therefore may include fewer or additional components. Callserver 130 is an example of a third party call controller—that is, acontroller that is not operated by the caller or a called party.Illustratively, call server 130 may be operated by a telephone serviceprovider, a data management service, a directory service, or some otherentity with which the caller and/or called party (or their serviceproviders) have established agreements.

In other embodiments, a call controller may be operated by a caller orcalled party, particularly when that party represents an organization.Thus, a call to or from a commercial enterprise may be controlled by anagent of that enterprise (e.g., a telephone agent or operator, a salesagent, a customer service representative, a technical supportrepresentative, a concierge). That agent can select content forpresentation on the other party's communication device based on apurpose of the call, a previous or current transaction between theparties, an offer being made to the other party, etc. Or, such contentmay be selected automatically, based on whether the organization has apre-existing relationship with the caller (e.g., whether the caller'stelephone number is known), which of multiple telephone numbers of theorganization the caller called, etc.

In some embodiments, a call controller, call server, or associatedentity may auction or directly sell a right to have content presented tocallers and/or called parties. For example, an entity that operates acall server may auction the right to present content to callers thatdial a particular organization (e.g., a commercial company) or that arecalled by the organization. The winner may be the same organization, acompetitor, or an unrelated party.

Or, an entity that operates a call server may auction contentpresentation rights based on identities or demographics of privatecallers and calling parties. Thus, content presented to a party may beselected based on his current location, as reported by a GPS (GlobalPositioning System) element of his communication device, his countrycode (if applicable), his area code, his telephone exchange or number,his city, his type of communication device, his telephone serviceprovider, and so on. For example, a content provider may be a vendor ofgoods or services and may have purchased the ability to have contentpresented to callers who place calls while they are within somepredetermined distance of the content provider.

Content presented on a communication device may fill the area of thetarget party's telephone display screen, or only a portion thereof. Forexample, when a call is placed to a commercial organization, contentfrom a single source may cover the caller's entire telephone display.But, when a call is placed to one private party from another privateparty, some or all of the display area may be used to present contentassociated with one or both parties (e.g., from Twitter™, Skype®,FaceTime®, Snapchat®, WhatsApp®, LinkedIn®, Facebook®, MySpace®,Instagram®, YouTube® Google+®, Flickr®), and only a small area may befilled with content (e.g., an advertisement) from a third party. Thus,content displayed on a party's telephone may comprise multiple contentcomponents from the same or different sources or providers.

When content is presented to a caller pre-ring (e.g., before adestination party's telephone rings, before a chat session isestablished with a recipient of the communication connection), thecaller may activate a control embedded in the content to take someaction offered by the content. For example, if he activates a control tore-route the call to a different destination (e.g., based on an offer oradvertisement in the presented content), the call controller or the callprocessor logic on the caller's telephone will cancel the attempted calland initiate a call to the new destination. Or, a caller may bepresented with content that offers to route the voice channeldifferently (e.g., via a different carrier for a cheaper rate).

In some embodiments, a call server and a separate call controller maycooperate to control the presentation of content to a caller and/or acalled party. For example, and as shown in FIG. 1, data channels may beestablished between the parties and a call server, and the call servermay be responsible for actually transmitting content to the parties andreceiving any data they submit.

The separate call controller, however, may be a third-party contentprovider (or other third party) and may determine (and/or dynamicallyprovide) content to be provided to a particular party. Thus, a callserver may participate in many calls, and connect to different callcontrollers for different calls (or at different times during one call)to receive content to be presented to a party. Even when a call serverand a call controller are co-located or comprise a single entity,content to be served to callers and/or called parties may be retrievedfrom other parties.

As one alternative, a call may be initially handled by a call server,perhaps to facilitate presentation of appropriate pre-ring content to acaller or called party. However, at some point (e.g., when the calledparty's telephone rings, when a chat session is established), control ofcontent presentation may be passed to a call controller associated withor employed by the called party. As yet another alternative, control ofcontent presentation may be passed immediately to an organizational callcontroller when a call destined for that organization is identified.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating presentation of content to a callerand/or a called party in association with a telephone call, according tosome embodiments.

At step A, the caller enters or selects a telephone number or contactlisting for called party 250, in order to initiate a voice call to thatparty. Alternatively, she may enter part of the target party's name ornumber and select the party from results produced by her communicationdevice and/or a source external to her device. At step B, the telephonenumbers and/or other identifiers of the caller and called party (e.g.,IP addresses if either party is using VoIP equipment) are transmitted tocall controller/call server 230 via a data channel of the caller'stelephone.

Control of the call may be passed to a particular call controller, basedon an identity of the caller or the called party. Specifically, callsfrom a certain number (or set of numbers, such as those of a singleorganization) or to a certain number (or set of numbers) may becontrolled by predetermined call controllers. Or, call controller 230may be a general call server configured to handle presentation of callsinvolving multiple private parties and/or organizations. In someembodiments, the terms call server and call controller are synonymous,and either entity may delay (or support/enable delayed establishment of)a communication connection; enable presentation of pre-ring, in-call,and/or post-call content; support sharing of content between device; andso on.

In step C, call controller 230 identifies a source of content to bepresented to caller 210 and/or called party 250, or may identifyspecific content (i.e., not just a content source). In step D, the callcontroller solicits content from a selected source, which may be a webserver, a data server, an advertisement server or other repository ofadvertisements, an organization's data server, the called party, thecaller, etc.

Content may be selected for presentation based on an identity of aparticular party, a relationship between the caller and the calledparty, an assumed (or known) purpose of the call, previous purchases orother behavior of a party, the location of a party, the local time withrespect to a particular party, and/or other factors.

In step E, call controller 230 forwards the selected content to eitheror both of the caller and the called party. In some embodiments, thecontent may be served directly to a caller or called party from acontent provider. Content may be presented to either party before thecalled party's telephone rings, during the parties' call and/or afterthe call is terminated.

The voice channel between caller 210 and called party 250 may be routedand established in a normal fashion. However, initiation of theconnection may be delayed for a short period of time (e.g., by callprocessor logic operating on the caller's telephone). Thus, the actualvoice connection may be completed any time after step A.

Illustrative content that may be presented to a caller or a called partypre-ring includes commercial offers and advertisements (e.g., if theother party is a commercial organization), private content such aspictures, communications, present status, current location (e.g., if theother party is a private individual), notifications, alerts, anidentifier of the other party to the call (e.g., a corporate logo, apersonal avatar), etc. As part of pre-ring or pre-call content, a callermay be able to better target his destination party. For example, if heis calling an organization's main (or toll-free) number, he may bepresented with content that allows him to choose a particular office oroutlet (e.g., based on city or address), a particular department (e.g.,customer service, technical assistance), etc.

Illustrative content that may be presented to a party during a callincludes any or all types of content that may be presented pre-ring.In-call content may also or instead relate to the parties' voiceconnection, perhaps to provide visual description of a subject of theparties' conversation, to graphically show different products or productoptions, to show a transcript of the conversation in real-time or nearreal-time (or provide other assistance to a hearing-impaired party), toguide a party through an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) menu, toprovide customer assistance graphically (instead of or in addition toverbally), to exchange information textually/graphically instead ofhaving to speak it or punch it in via a keypad, to promote an up-sell,to guide a party through an organization's telephone directory to find adesired person, to share content displayed on or stored on one party'sdevice, to recreate annotations (e.g., mark-ups, comments, highlights,drawings) generated on one party's device on another party's device,etc.

Illustrative post-call content includes content that may be presentedpre-ring and/or in-call. Post-call content may also or instead summarizethe parties' conversation or transaction, provide a receipt, identifyfollow-on actions, confirm a later appointment or other scheduled event,return a party to a previously viewed set of content, etc. In someimplementations, presentation of post-call content may entail providingto a party's device a link or reference to the content, in which casethe device retrieves and presents the content to the party.

FIG. 3 illustrates content that may be presented to a caller or a calledparty in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments.

Content 310 reflects the presentation of a logo, profile, or othercontent that identifies an organization. In particular, content 310comprises an advertisement of a merchant. Content 310 may be presentedto a caller when she initiates a call with the indicated merchant, ormay be presented to a called party when the merchant calls her (e.g., toverify an order, to report on an order status, to obtain additionalinformation). Or, the illustrated content may be presented when a personengages in a call with a competitor of the indicated merchant, oranother party unrelated to the merchant.

Content 350 includes not only a logo or other visual illustration of anorganization, but also presents an offer of a product or service (i.e.,a room upgrade). Illustratively, the recipient of content 350 may havebooked a room reservation (with the indicated merchant or a competitor),or may be in the process of making a room reservation.

Thus content 350 may be presented while the recipient is engaged in acall with the offering merchant, in which case the recipient canverbally accept the offer or make an inquiry. Or, if the offer ispresented when the recipient is not currently engaged in a call with themerchant, hitting a “dial” button, tapping the screen (if it istouch-sensitive) or activating another control may initiate a callbetween the recipient and the advertising merchant so that she can takeadvantage of the offer.

In FIG. 3, a call controller managing the presentation of content 310and/or content 350 may be a merchant featured in the content, especiallyfor a call placed to the merchant or from the merchant. Or, the callcontroller may be a call server or other third party. Because the callcontroller may be a third party, calls during which the content ispresented may not even involve a merchant identified in content 310 orcontent 350.

FIG. 4 also illustrates content that may be presented to a caller orcalled party in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments.

Illustratively, content 410 may be presented to a caller during a callwith the indicated pizza vendor. Content 410 not only allows themerchant and the caller to verify the caller's current order, but alsocomprises an advertisement or offer for an additional purchase, and maybe presented before, during, or after the call. Specifically, content410 verifies the customer's order (i.e., for one large Chicago-stylepizza, with pepperoni) and the delivery address, and also reminds thecustomer of a special offer (i.e., $0.99 apple pies on Tuesday nights).

Content 410 may also, or instead, provide a control that the caller canactuate to cause the caller's address (e.g., home address, work address,current address) to be transmitted to the merchant or call controller.Illustratively, address information may be stored on the caller'scommunication device (e.g., in a contact record associated with thecaller) and may be automatically transmitted to another party when thecaller initiates such action.

In FIG. 4, the call controller that manages the presentation of contenton the customer's telephone may be a telephone agent associated with thepizza merchant. In this case, when the customer called the merchant, adata connection was automatically established between the controller(which may be local to or remote from the customer) and the customer.Thereafter, the call controller can determine what is presented to thecaller.

FIG. 5 also illustrates content that may be presented to a caller orcalled party in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments.

Content 510 of FIG. 5 identifies a merchant or other organization withwhich a person has established a telephone call, completed a telephonecall, or is about to call, or possibly a competitor of such a merchant.Content 510 includes coupon 520, and may be used during a call with theadvertiser or offline (e.g., in person in a retail store). As indicated,the coupon may be automatically transmitted to the person's emailaddress if the call controller or an associated call server knows his orher address, or if the person releases the address.

In other embodiments, other content may be presented to a party when heis engaged in a call with a merchant, or has initiated a call to amerchant. For example, the party's last transaction may be displayed, anoutstanding balance or other account status may be presented, anothermerchant advertisement (e.g., from the yellow pages, from an emailcampaign) may be displayed, a status of a customer service request orcomplaint may be presented, etc.

A call reflected in FIG. 5 may be controlled by the organizationidentified in the content (e.g., a telephone agent that is talking withor has talked with the customer) or by a third party (e.g., a callserver).

FIG. 6 illustrates content that may be presented to a potential calledparty in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments.

Content 610 of FIG. 6 may be presented to a called party pre-ring (i.e.,before her telephone rings), in association with a pending call from anorganization, such as the indicated bank. As shown in FIG. 6, thecontent advises the party that the organization is placing a call to hertelephone, and indicates a reason for the call. The party may be able todefer the call, agree to answer it, or take other action (e.g., send anelectronic mail message, initiate an inquiry or complaint), byactivating a corresponding control 620.

In some embodiments, advisory pre-ring content such as content 610 mayinclude information to help verify the authenticity of the source of theupcoming call. For example, the organization may include some digits ofthe person's account number, give details of a previous transaction withthe organization, etc.

In some embodiments, pre-ring content may include controls for takingaction such as accepting the call as planned, completing the callimmediately, postponing the call, scheduling it for a particular time,selecting content to be discussed during the call (e.g., an accountbalance, a bill, a page of the organization's website), etc. Suchcontrols may be included as part of the pre-ring content, or may beadded by the call controller or the call processor logic on thereceiving party's communication device.

A call controller for presenting content 610 may be the organizationthat wishes to contact the called party (e.g., a telephone agent, anaccount representative), or may be a third party.

FIG. 7 illustrates content that may be presented to a caller inassociation with a telephone call, according to some embodiments.

Content 710 of FIG. 7 is presented to a caller pre-ring, when hecommences a call to a friend or acquaintance (e.g., someone within herlist of contacts or friends). Instead of only seeing the name and/ornumber of the person he is calling, the caller receives additionalinformation regarding the called party and/or other people, such as apicture of the called party.

Pre-ring content 710 reports the current status of the target calledparty, which may be determined by the call controller or call serverhandling the data portion of this call. His status may be tracked by thecall controller, especially if the call controller is associated withthe called party's telephone service provider, for example, in whichcase it can easily stay apprised of the status (e.g., location) of theparty's telephone.

Thus, the target called party's status may indicate that he is currentlyon another call, that he is otherwise busy, that his telephone is turnedoff, etc. Illustratively, he may have activated a control on histelephone that reports his status. Based on the called party's status,the caller may be offered options to have a return call placed to thecaller when the called party is available, to try the call again, tocontinue with the call (e.g., to leave a voicemail or media message), tocamp and wait for the called party to become available, etc.

Content 710 also includes an excerpt from the called party's (or a thirdparty's) electronic presence (e.g., an excerpt from LinkedIn®,Facebook®, YouTube®, Instagram®, MySpace® or other web site), a recentTwitter™ or Snapchat® message (from the called party or a mutualfriend/acquaintance, which mentions the caller or the called party), anoffer to make a further connection with the called party (e.g., viaLinkedIn®, hi5, Skype®, FaceTime®), a recent photo posted by the calledparty, and so on.

As indicated in FIG. 7, content 710 may be presented as pre-ringcontent, but some elements of the content may also (or instead) bepresented as in-call and/or post-call content. Alternatively, in-calland post-call content may be completely different from content 710.

The called party may be presented with similar content pre-ring,in-call, and/or post-call. Of course, instead of seeing content abouthimself, the called party may be presented content associated with thecaller and/or third parties (e.g., mutual friends and acquaintances).

Content 710 includes timer 712 that indicates how soon the voice channelof the call will be connected or routed for connection. Illustratively,the voice connection may be delayed in order to determine and presentthe called party's status, to retrieve content to be presented, to allowthe caller to review content 710 or to choose an alternate course ofaction if the called party is not currently available, or for some otherreason. A control (e.g., one of controls 720) may, however, allow thecaller to terminate the delay and proceed with (or attempt) the voiceconnection immediately.

A call controller for controlling presentation of content 710 in FIG. 7may be the called party or a third party (e.g., a call server, atelephone service provider of the caller or the called party). Forexample, the called party may have specified certain content, or sourcesfrom which content may be retrieved, for presentation to someone when acall is established or is being initiated to him. Similarly, the callermay have identified content that may be displayed to the called party,in which case he may be considered the call controller for the calledparty's side of the telephone connection.

FIG. 8 further illustrates content that may be presented to a caller orcalled party in association with a telephone call, according to someembodiments.

Content 810 of FIG. 8 not only identifies the other party to a currentcall, but also includes content drawn from an electronic presence of theother party (or a third party), such as content from LinkedIn®,Facebook®, Twitter™ and/or other web sites or content repositories. Yetother content may be accessed by either or both of the parties to thecall, by activating an appropriate control within content 810 to open aYouTube video, view a photo at Flickr, listen to some audio, etc.

Content 810 may also provide personal information about the other party(e.g., her upcoming birthday), her approximate location (e.g., 1700 feetaway), her status (e.g., in a meeting, dining, in transit).

An advertisement included with content 810 may be relevant to anotherportion of the content (e.g., a birthday announcement, a discussion oftraffic, an invitation to dine), and/or may be associated with one orboth of the parties' current locations (e.g., as reported by a GPScomponent of a party's telephone).

A call controller responsible for presenting content (or determiningcontent to be presented) to a caller or called party in the call of FIG.8 may be the other party, a call server, or some other third party(e.g., the source of the advertisement).

As seen in FIGS. 3-8, pre-ring, in-call, and post-call content presentedto a caller or called party may relate to any of the parties to a calland/or a third party. The content may include entertainment for one ormore of the parties to enjoy before, during, and/or after the call butmay also (or instead) include commercial information (e.g., salesoffers, transaction details, advertisements, coupons). Commercialcontent presented to a party engaged in a call with an organization maybe associated with that organization, a competitor, an associate, or anunrelated entity.

Content may include various controls for accessing additional content(alone or in unison with the other party to a call—as shared content,for example), for navigating to a party's page or presence at aparticular web site, for affecting the voice channel of a call (e.g., todelay or reschedule a call, to leave a message, to add another party tothe call), for accepting or viewing further details of an advertisement,and so on.

Some controls and actions offered via content presented on a party'scommunication device may involve altering the routing of a current call.For example, when a caller initiates an overseas call via a particularcarrier, an advertisement or offer from a competing carrier may bepresented pre-ring (e.g., to complete the call for $0.0× per minute). Ifthe caller wishes to take advantage of the offer, he may activate acorresponding control within the presented content. Or, the offer may bepresented as an offer or coupon during or after the original call.

Similarly, a caller may choose to route a call to a differentdestination based on pre-ring content. Thus, if a caller dials acommercial organization and an advertisement or offer from a competitoris presented pre-ring, the caller may accept or choose to investigatethe offer (e.g., by activating a control within the content), in whichcase the destination of the call is changed before the original calledparty's telephone rings.

In some embodiments in which a call is controlled by a third party(i.e., not the caller or the called party), the call controller maypresent to one party content associated with a competitor or anassociate of the other party. For example, content selected forpresentation may be provided by the highest bidder for calls targeting aparticular merchant or from a particular caller, or from a callermatching a certain demographic (e.g., age, sex, location, income).

In some embodiments, before or during a current call, a caller (orcalled party) may specify that another call should be established whenthe current call is terminated. If multiple follow-on calls are desired,a queue may be established (and may be viewable to that party). Forexample, if an advertisement or a communication from afriend/acquaintance is presented to the caller before or during a firstcall, he may activate an associated control to program his communicationdevice to automatically place a follow-on call when the current call iscompleted.

As described previously, when a caller or called party's communicationdevice is not capable of presenting rich (e.g., multimedia) content,pre-ring, in-call, and/or post-call content may be presented on aselected computing device. The content may be presented within atraditional browser program, within an application provided by anoperator of a call server (or by some other entity), via an instantmessaging program or electronic mail, or in some other manner.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart demonstrating a method of controllingpresentation of content in association with a telephone call, accordingto some embodiments. In other embodiments, one or more of theillustrated operations may be omitted, repeated, and/or performed in adifferent order. Accordingly, the specific arrangement of steps shown inFIG. 9 should not be construed as limiting the scope of the embodiments.In the illustrated embodiments, content may be presented on acommunication device or associated computing device of either or both acaller and a called party.

In operation 902, a caller initiates a call from a communication device.In some embodiments, a dialer or call processor on the caller'stelephone is augmented or replaced by a dialer or call processorconfigured to facilitate such media presentation, or is modified tooperate as described here.

A replacement or modified call processor program may be configured toimmediately initiate a data connection with a call server or othercontroller when the caller enters the number to be dialed, when thecaller selects the party to be called (e.g., from a list of contacts),or when the caller activates a control to place the call (e.g., a “dial”button”). Or, if the caller uses a search function to find a desiredparty by entering a partial name or telephone number, the search may beperformed both on the user's device and off the device (e.g., at a callserver), in which case the call controller can determine in real timethat a call is being commenced.

In optional operation 904, the call processor (or other logic on thecalling device) may present an initial message or content screen to thecaller (if the calling device is capable of presenting such a message).For example, if the called party is known to be a friend of the caller,an initial message such as “Retrieving X's latest photo from Facebook .. . ” or “Checking X's current status in WhatsApp . . . ” (where X isthe name of the friend) may be displayed.

Or, if the called party is known to be a merchant that has an agreementwith the call controller, a commercial-oriented message may bedisplayed, such as “Checking for personalized offers . . . ” (if thecalled party is a vendor) or “Retrieving details of your previoustransaction . . . ,” etc.

Yet further, an initial set of content may presented from local storage(e.g., a cache) on the caller's device. For example, for parties thatthe caller often communicates with (e.g., close friends, favoritetake-out restaurants), content related to the parties (e.g., pictures,video shared between the parties, a menu) may be presented even beforethe call is connected. Depending on the resources of the caller'sdevice, content related to any number of specific parties, and/orgeneral content that may be displayed for calls to various parties, maybe cached or stored on the caller's communication device.

Thus, an initial message displayed even before the caller's call isplaced may comprise a logo or advertisement of a commercial business, anavatar representing a friend or acquaintance, a picture of the calledparty, social content (e.g., from a social networking or content sharingweb site), etc. Such content may be automatically refreshed on a regularor occasional basis. In some alternate embodiments, an initial messagemay simply indicate that the desired call is being placed (e.g., withminimal or no content).

In optional operation 906, the voice portion of the call is delayed. Inparticular, in the illustrated embodiment, signaling of the call via SS7(Signaling System Number 7) or other telephone switching scheme may beautomatically delayed by a short period of time (e.g., 1 second, 5seconds, 10 seconds) to allow a data portion of the call to beestablished between the calling device and a call controller. Asdescribed above, the call controller may be a call server, a telephoneagent (automated or human), an operator, or other entity.

A default period of delay may be increased or decreased based on anidentity of the caller or called party, or the time necessary to collectand present appropriate content, and different delays may be associatedwith different parties. Yet further, once the data connection isestablished with the call controller (e.g., in operation 908), thecalling device may be instructed to extend the delay or to reduce oreliminate any delay.

For example, if the call is being placed to a particular friend oracquaintance, and it is known that no relevant content is availableregarding that person, the delay may be negligible. Alternatively, ifthe call controller is able to quickly determine that an electronicpresence of the called party has recently changed (e.g., at a web pageon Twitter™, WhatsApp®, LinkedIn®, Facebook®, YouTube®, Instagram®, orMySpace®), a delay may be lengthened to allow that page (or a portionthereof) to be retrieved and served to the calling device.

As another example, if the call is being placed to an unknown party, nocontent specifically relative to that party will be identified, and sothere may be little or no delay. Alternatively, if the called party is aknown commercial entity, the call controller may implement a delaysufficient to allow identification, retrieval, and serving of relevantcontent—such as details of a previous transaction, a status of a currenttransaction, a customer service request, an invoice, an advertisementfrom a competitor, a special deal, a guide to an IVR (Interactive VoiceResponse) menu of the called party's telephone system, etc.

Voice connections to some telephone numbers (e.g., 911, 411, 0), tofriends and acquaintances (e.g., private individuals within the caller'scontact list), or to numbers matching certain patterns (e.g., anythingless than seven digits, anything more than ten digits, anything with a *or # symbol) may be initiated without delay or may otherwise be treatedin a special manner.

In operation 908, a data connection between the caller's communicationdevice and the call controller is established, and the call controllerreceives the origination telephone number, the destination telephonenumber and any related information (e.g., names of caller and calledparty, an indication of a frequency of contact between the parties,details of a previous call between the parties, content the callerwishes to share with the called party).

In some embodiments, the call controller is an agent associated witheither the caller or the called party, especially when that party is (orrepresents) a company or other organization. Thus, presentation ofcontent in association with calls placed to some organizations (e.g.,large commercial companies) may be controlled by an agent that works forthat organization. In these embodiments, the call controller can presentto the caller special deals (e.g., sales, personalized offers,upgrades), details of a previous or current transaction between thecaller and the organization, visual information regarding theorganization or a product or service the organization offers (e.g.,pictures, one-way or two-way video, graphics), etc.

In other embodiments, a call controller may be a third party (e.g., thecaller's or called party's telephone service provider, an operator of acall server). A third party controller may control presentation ofcontent related to either or both the caller and called party, and/ormay present content relating to a different party. For example, a thirdparty call controller may present to a caller an advertisement for acompetitor or affiliate of the called party, or present to the calledparty an advertisement for a competitor or affiliate of the caller.

A call controller may establish agreements with commercial (and/orother) entities to present their selected content (e.g., advertisements,special offers) to certain callers and/or called parties based on theiridentity or the identity of a party to which they would be connected toif the current call is completed. The content to be presented may beselected at random, or may be based on an identity or profile of thecaller or the called party.

In particular, a call controller (especially a third party call server)may auction or otherwise sell content presentation opportunities toadvertisers or other entities. The call controller may differentiatecontent presentation opportunities based on the caller and/or calledparty identities, geographical location of a party, party demographics,and/or any other characteristic.

Also in operation 908, the call controller may quickly attempt toascertain a status of the called party. For example, by making (orattempting to make) a data connection to the called party'scommunication device, the call controller may determine that the calledparty is available, is on a call (and maybe an identity of the otherparty), is in a meeting or is otherwise unavailable, possibly due to acommunication failure or an emergency. Illustratively, such a status maybe determined based on a status of the communication device (e.g.,off-hook) or by a status set on the device by the called party (e.g., toforward call, to initiate a silent mode of operation).

If the called party is unavailable, the caller may be offered the optionto wait, to call later, to leave a message, to have the called partyplace a return call the caller, to automatically place a call from thecaller to the called party when he/she is available, etc.

The call controller may also determine whether the communication devicesof either the caller or called party are incapable of presentingcontent, in which case any content selected for presentation to thatparty may be presented on an associated computing device (if one hasbeen identified).

Once the call controller learns the identities (or telephone numbers) ofeither or both the caller and the called party, it may block or allowthe call based on a global block/allow list maintained at the callcontroller. For example, if the caller is a known telemarketer orspammer (or some other type of undesirable caller), or perhaps even asuspected telemarketer, and the called party has opted to have callsfrom such sources blocked, the call controller may block thepresentation of content to the called party and may even prevent thevoice connection from being completed.

In operation 910, the call controller selects content to be presented tothe caller and/or called party, retrieves it from an internal databaseor from an external location, or otherwise causes it to be transmittedto the desired party or parties. To select content for presentation, thecall server may consider personal characteristics (e.g., age, sex,geographic location), behavior (e.g., browsing history, calling history,buying pattern) and so on, of the caller and/or the called party.

The call controller may also consider whether the caller or called partyis known to have a personal web page, a page on a social networking ordating site, or some other electronic presence that can be accessed andthat can be shared with the other party. Illustratively, subscribers maygive permission to a call controller to access certain electronicinformation and present it to all or selected parties. Thus, friends andfamily members can specify that their electronic content on certainsites can be shared with certain people (or all parties) with which theycommunicate.

Content may be presented to either party pre-ring (i.e., before thecalled party's communication device rings), in-call (i.e., during acall), and/or post-call (i.e., after one or both parties hang up). Thecall controller may identify and/or retrieve content to be displayed inall phases at once, or may identify/retrieve content separately for thedifferent phases. Information necessary to select appropriate content(e.g., identities of the caller and called party) may be received viathe data connection—in the form of the parties' telephone numbers ornetwork addresses (e.g., for VoIP calls), for example.

Content to be presented to a party may change over time, or be replaced.For example, if one of the parties updates a page of personal electroniccontent (e.g., on a social network site), that page or the changes maybe automatically shared with the other party. Or, as a call with acommercial entity proceeds, presented content may be updated to reflectan order that is being placed for a good or service, to verify terms ofa transaction, to provide assistance or reflect assistance that has beenprovided, to provide payment options, etc.

In operation 912, pre-ring content (i.e., content to be presented beforethe destination communication device rings) is transmitted to the callerand/or the called party via data channels, for display or presentationto their operators/users.

In some embodiments, pre-ring content presented to a caller or calledparty comprises information that the call controller believes the partymay be able to use or wish to see during the call. For example, if oneparty is an organization, the other party may be shown locationinformation regarding the organization (e.g., the nearest shop or outletof the organization), a profile or description of the organization,details of a previous or pending transaction with the organization, thestatus of an account with the organization, an offer from a partner oraffiliate of the organization, an offer from a competitor of theorganization, a purpose of the call, a notification of the call, etc.

If the parties are friends or acquaintances, one party may be showncontent drawn from a social networking site or other electronic presenceof the other party (e.g., a photograph, a video), content shared betweenthe parties, status information of the other party or a mutualfriend/acquaintance, etc.

Thus, pre-ring content presented to a caller or called party may beassociated with the other party and/or a third party (e.g., a competitorof one of the parties to the call, a mutual friend or relative of thecaller and the called party). Further, the called party may be offeredthe opportunity to postpone or reschedule the call for a later time.

In operation 914, the voice channel of the call is routed normally(e.g., through the telephone network of the caller's service provider),and a communication device of the called party rings.

In operation 916, after the called party answers, in-call content (i.e.,content presented during the call) is transmitted to one or bothparties' communication devices (or associated computing devices) fordisplay to the caller and/or the called party. In-call content may bethe same as, or different from, pre-ring content.

For example, if one party is a merchant, the other party may bepresented with information regarding a current transaction with themerchant, possibly to verify what is being ordered, a delivery address,a method of payment, or other detail. This data may be updateddynamically as the call progresses. Or, if the caller and called partyare collaborating on a document or other electronic product, some or allof that content may be displayed.

Yet further, one of the parties may select content stored on his or hercommunication device, or navigate a browser on their device to somecontent, and elect to share that with the other party. The callcontroller or a call server would then ensure the other party is able toaccess the content. Content may be shared in this manner before, during,and/or after a call. Even without an associated call, one party may beable to transmit data or content to another party via the systemdescribed herein, for off-line presentation to the other party.

One benefit of presenting in-call content is that a caller and a calledparty can engage in simultaneous data and voice connections. Althoughthe voice connection will couple the caller and called party (and anyother parties conferenced in), the data connection may couple each partyto a call server or a call controller. They may therefore discuss andshare electronic content in real-time.

If the call is not answered in operation 916, the caller may be able toleave a voice or message for the called party.

In operation 918, one or both of the parties hang-up, therebyterminating the voice channel of the call.

In operation 920, additional (post-call) content may be presented toeither or both of the caller and the called party. Post-call content mayverify a decision made during the call, provide a party with follow-ontasks (e.g., make a call to another party, view a web page associatedwith the other party), etc. Or, post-call content may be identical orsimilar to pre-call and/or in-call content.

In some embodiments, a person (or organization) may construct or designa custom set of content to be presented to another party before, duringor after a call to (and/or from) that party. The content may be staticin that it comprises content that is selected once and does not changeunless/until the person changes the content. Or, the custom content maycomprise links to content or content sources that may change overtime—such as the person's (or organization's) LinkedIn®, YouTube®,Instagram®, MySpace® or Facebook® page (or a particular frame of such apage). As the content changes, the updated content will be captured andpresented to other parties as allowed by the originating party (e.g.,limited to friends and family, displayable to all parties).

For example, a person may assemble a personalized hello screen or page(for playing pre-ring or in-call) or a personalized goodbye screen (tobe played after a call). Other personalized screens may be configured tobe presented to another party in the case the person cannot take acall—such as one screen if the person is busy, and a different screen ifthe person is away from her phone—or for other reasons.

Such personalized content may include controls for taking some action.For example, if a called party is busy and cannot take the caller's callimmediately, personalized content may be presented to the caller with acontrol that helps the caller navigate to the called party's socialnetwork web page, to an online calendar for making an appointment orseeing when the called party will be available for a call, etc.

A call server or other entity may provide a web server or other onlineservice to assist a subscriber in the creation and maintenance of apersonalized page or screen of content to be presented to another partywhen the subscriber calls (or receives a call from) the other party.This service may be independently operated or may be hosted by anotheronline presence, such as Twitter™, Skype®, FaceTime®, Snapchat®,WhatsApp®, LinkedIn®, YouTube®, Instagram®, MySpace®, Facebook®, etc.

Other parties, particularly organizations, may develop custom pages orscreens independently. Custom screens may be cached on a call server,stored with a call controller, or maintained elsewhere (e.g., in theorganization's data center(s)) in anticipation of being retrieved forpresentation. In some embodiments, a party's custom screen may beindexed by telephone number, by an identity of the party (e.g., name)and/or in another manner.

In addition to, or instead of, identifying or constructing defaultcustom content to be presented to another party in association with atelephone call with that party, a person (or organization) may constructor select a simple pre-ring message to be presented to a targeted party.As described above, for example, a caller may issue a pre-ring messageidentifying a purpose for the pending call.

Before, during, after, and between calls, a party may push images,video, and/or other content to another party (e.g., an electroniccontact or business card, an electronic birthday card, a shippingaddress or billing address, payment data, a receipt). Further, partiesto a call may simultaneously access content located on one of theparties' devices or elsewhere.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart demonstrating a method of presenting relevantcontent to a caller in association with a call to an organization (e.g.,a merchant), according to some embodiments. In other embodiments, one ormore of the illustrated operations may be omitted, repeated, and/orperformed in a different order. Accordingly, the specific arrangement ofsteps shown in FIG. 10 should not be construed as limiting the scope ofthe embodiments.

In operation 1002, an operator of a call server accepts bids for theopportunity to present content to persons calling the organization. Inparticular, third parties (and/or the organization itself) may bid anamount they are willing to pay the call server in return for the callserver presenting the third party's selected content to some number ofcallers that initiate calls to the organization.

This operation may be part of a larger effort in which the call serverauctions the ability to present content to persons that will call(and/or be called by) various organizations. In different embodiments,content selected by the winner of an auction may be cached on a callserver, may remain with the winner or may be cached elsewhere (e.g., anad server). The call server may auction different call typesseparately—such as calls from different geographical areas, calls fromcallers matching different demographics, calls to a specific subset ofthe destination organization's telephone numbers, calls groupedaccording to temporal characteristics, etc.

Because content may be presented to a caller pre-ring (before thedestination party's telephone rings), in-call (during the call), and/orpost-call (after the call), different parties (or the same party) mayearn the right to have their content presented at different times. Thus,one party may supply pre-ring content while other parties presentin-call and post-call content. Or, one party may win the right to supplymultiple stages of content in association with one call.

Further, multiple parties may obtain the opportunity to present contentat the same time. For example, one type of content (e.g., pre-ringcontent) may be configured to comprise two (or more) components orframes, and each component may be populated by a different source.

In some embodiments, a party (e.g., the organization) may obtain theability to directly control the presentation of content on the caller'scommunication device at some phase, especially during and/or after thecall. Thus, while a different party, such as a competitor of theorganization, may serve pre-ring content for a caller, once the call isconnected to the organization, the organization may be able todynamically select and present content to the caller.

In optional operation 1004, the call server receives a destinationtelephone number lookup request from a caller's communication device(e.g., telephone). More specifically, in the embodiments reflected inFIG. 10, a caller may initiate a keyword-based lookup of a destinationtelephone number. The keyword received in operation 1004 may or may notmatch the organization identified in operation 1002.

To perform a search, the caller may enter a portion of the name of adesired destination by spelling it out with his telephone's keypad, byspeaking it into the telephone's microphone, or via other means (e.g., abraille or haptic device). That input may be used (and converted to textas necessary) to lookup matching parties locally (i.e., on the caller'scommunication device) and/or globally (i.e., on a call server or otherlocation external to the caller's communication device).

It may be noted that a keyword-based search may involve searching forspecific people and/or organizations having names that match a caller'skeyword. Or, a keyword may identify a category of a good or service thecaller desires (e.g., pizza, taxi, hotel, Chinese food), in which casethe results will include parties that can provide the desired good orservice.

Thus, if the caller enters several letters of a merchant's name orcategory of good (e.g., “h e r t”, “m a r r i o”, “p i z z”), searchesmay be initiated for people and/or organizations that match the keywordor input pattern. A search may return any number of results (zero ormore), depending on how many characters are input, whether the caller isspelling the name correctly, how many telephone numbers are associatedwith parties that match the keyword, etc.

In some embodiments, the call server may auction or sell prioritypositions in keyword search results. Specifically, a party matching akeyword pattern (or even a party that doesn't match the pattern) may paythe call server to receive premium treatment in a list of search resultsserved to the caller (e.g., by being placed at the top of the list, byreceiving an entry having a larger size, a different color, or otherhighlighting).

If multiple telephone numbers are found for a given party that matchesthe keyword(s), they may be ordered in some logical fashion. Thus, alocal or toll-free number for the party may be prioritized higher than along-distance number, an IP address for a VoIP call may be prioritizedhigher than a telephone number (or vice-versa), a matching party thatthe caller has called before may be prioritized above one that he or shehas not called before, etc.

Of note, a search or directory lookup initiated by a caller in operation1004 may simultaneously or sequentially search the caller's localcommunication device and a call server (and/or a third-party directory),with only a single command or control activation. Thus, the caller caninitiate a search of multiple data repositories, local and/or remote,with a single command.

Besides searching a person's contact list on their local communicationdevice and/or a central call server (or call controller), a directorylookup or contact search may also search contact information stored inthe person's electronic online presence. Thus, contact informationwithin the person's page on LinkedIn®, YouTube®, Instagram®, MySpace®,Facebook® or other social site may be searched. Yet further, a searchmay be conducted within a third-party data repository, such as an onlineyellow pages, a university's or other organization's telephonedirectory, a commercial database, etc.

In optional operation 1006, the call server serves a list of searchresults. The results may be ordered alphabetically, by popularity orsome other rating, by location (e.g., distance from the caller or afixed point (such as a set of GPS coordinates)), by payments receivedfrom parties in the list, by temporal characteristics, etc. A list ofresults provided by the call server may be merged with a list of resultsgenerated by the caller's communication device.

In operation 1008, the call server is notified of a call being placed tothe organization. Illustratively, the caller may have initiated the callby selecting or activating an entry within the list of search resultsreceived in operation 1006, or may initiate the present call at somelater time. Notification of the call may be received via a data channel(or data channels) hosted by the caller's communication device.

Alternatively, the notification may be received via a data connectionwith the caller's telephone service provider. This may occur if thecaller's communication device does not have a data channel or is notcapable of presenting rich content.

Routing of the caller's voice connection may be automatically delayed bythe caller's communication device or by the caller's telephone serviceprovider. For example, the destination organization may be recognized asa commercial entity, and call processing logic on the caller's device(or at the caller's service provider) may be configured to delay callsto commercial organizations (or selected commercial organizations) sothat appropriate content can be selected and presented to the caller.

In operation 1010, the call server identifies a source of pre-ringcontent to be presented to the caller, based on the destinationtelephone number (i.e., the organization), the caller's identity, thecaller's location and/or other factors. Based on the auction ofoperation 1002 for example, the call server may be configured to servecontent provided by the winner of the auction to the next X number ofcallers that place calls to the organization, or to callers matching oneor more criteria.

In operation 1012, the call server queries the content provider for thepre-ring content. Alternatively, such content may be pre-identified, inwhich case the call server may automatically retrieve it.

If the pre-ring content must be retrieved from the content provider, thecall server may provide information regarding the caller (e.g.,telephone number, name, demographic data). Such information may be usedby the content provider to select particular content; for example, thecontent provider may wish to present different content to callers thatit “knows” than to unknown callers. Therefore, if the caller has arelationship with the content provider, the content provider may producecontent comprising a different offer, advertisement, or other message.

In operation 1014, the content provider submits pre-ring content to thecall server that it would like to have presented to the caller or,alternatively, identifies a location (e.g., URL, network address) fromwhich the content may be retrieved.

In operation 1016, the call server transmits the selected pre-ringcontent to the caller's communication device, and call processing logic(or other logic) operating on the device presents the content to thecaller. Alternatively, browser logic (or other logic) operating on thecommunication device may be instructed to retrieve the content from oneor more specified locations. For example, the pre-ring content maycomprise one or more components stored in one or more locations, and thebrowser logic may be responsible for retrieving the components,assembling them, and presenting the content.

As described previously, if the caller's communication device isincapable of receiving or displaying the content, the content may bepresented on a computing device associated with the caller.

In operation 1018, the caller's communication device (or computingdevice) or the call server determines if the caller takes some actionwith regard to the pre-ring content that affects routing or processingof the voice connection.

For example, the pre-ring content may include an offer from a competitorof the organization, or an offer to route the call more cheaply, and thecaller may activate a control associated with such an offer. The actionmay thus simply affect how the voice connection is routed, or may changethe destination of the call. If the call is modified by the caller'saction regarding the pre-ring content, the method continues at operation1020; otherwise, the method advances to operation 1022.

In operation 1020, the call server or logic operating on the caller'scommunication (or computing) device implements the desired action. Thus,a call processor on the communication device may drop or cancel thecurrent voice connection (which may not have been dialed yet) and selecta new telephone number to call.

Note that if the call destination has changed (e.g., to a differentorganization), a different party may become responsible for providingcontent to be presented in-call and/or post-call.

In operation 1022, the voice portion of the call proceeds, either to theoriginal destination or a new one specified by the caller in operation1018. In addition, the call server queries or prompts the appropriatecontent provider for in-call content.

In an embodiment in which control of in-call content presentationcompletely passes to a call controller (content provider) other than thecall server, such as the destination organization, such control may bepassed in operation 1022. Specifically, once the call is confirmed to bedestined for a particular organization, the organization may become thecall controller for in-call and possibly post-call content as well.

In operation 1024, in-call content is presented to the caller on hiscommunication (or computing) device. As already described, the contentmay be served from the initial call server (after being identified by aresponsible content provider), by the selected content provider, ordirectly from an assigned call controller.

Even if a call controller separate from the call center has acquiredcontrol of in-call content presentation, such content may still transita data channel established between the caller and the call server. Or,alternatively, the data channel may be re-routed to the call controller.

The in-call content may directly relate to the call, especially if thecontent is produced by the called organization. For example, if thein-call content is controlled by a human agent of the calledorganization, she may supplement information exchanged over the voiceconnection with audio, textual, and/or video data presented via thecaller's telephone or computing device.

In operation 1026, post-call content is presented to the caller after heand/or the called organization hang-up. Such content may be produced bythe called organization and/or by some other party that earned the rightto have its content presented.

Post-call content may directly relate to the call (e.g., a receipt, aninvoice, a transaction summary), may be unrelated, or may have somelogical association—such as an offer for a good or service thatcomplements (or competes with) something the organization sells orprovides.

In some embodiments, pre-ring, in-call, and/or post-call contentpresented to a caller or a called party may include one or more coupons.In these embodiments, a coupon may comprise a graphical image of acoupon, a discount code, or any other textual or graphical display thatgrants the recipient a discount in purchase price or a special deal(e.g., one item free with the purchase of another item). An entire (orpartial) image of the coupon may be presented, or just a link to thecoupon may be presented (e.g., “Press here for a 25% off coupon!”).

A coupon may be redeemed during a telephone call associated with thepresentation of the content or at some later time. Call processor logic,coupon logic, or other logic operating on the recipient's communication(or computing) device may be configured to save coupons, at least untiltheir dates of expiration. Coupons may also, or instead, be saved for auser at a call server, such as in a “coupon account” associated with theuser by name, telephone number, or some other identifier.

A coupon database for storing coupons for award or presentation to usersmay be indexed or sorted by telephone number and/or name of thecorresponding merchant, and may reside at a call server or a thirdparty. Then, when a caller initiates a call to one of the telephonenumbers or merchants, one or more coupons matching the target calledparty may be retrieved and presented.

Further, a coupon for a given merchant may be associated with atelephone number of a competitor or a merchant of an associated good orservice, in which case a caller may not receive coupons only for themerchant that it intended to call. A set of coupons identified forpresentation to a caller may be filtered by relevance, perhaps inconsideration of the merchants' proximity to the caller, the time of day(e.g., in case some merchants are closed), etc.

A coupon may be presented pre-ring based on the telephone number beingdialed or an identity of the target party. Or, in response to adirectory lookup (e.g., based on a keyword) performed on a call server,a coupon may be served for an organization included in the list ofresults (or for a competitor of such an organization). Thus, if a callerenters a lookup for the keyword “pizza,” along with a list of pizzavendors (possibly identifying their proximity to the caller), one ormore coupons may be presented.

Along with presentation of a pre-ring coupon, a control for routing orre-routing the call to the offeror may be provided. If activated, thecoupon (or notification of the coupon) may be passed to the offeroralong with the call.

In-call presentation of a coupon may be triggered not only by a callserver or call controller selecting such content to be presented to thecaller, but may also be triggered based on coupons stored for theuser—either locally on her communication device or centrally in the“coupon account” mentioned above. Thus, after a voice connection iscompleted to an agent for a particular merchant, the caller may bereminded of (e.g., shown) a coupon she possesses for the merchant. Shecan then pass to the agent a code within the coupon or perhaps activatea control that transmits the coupon to the agent.

As for post-call content, after a caller completes a call with amerchant, post-call content may include a coupon for use the next timethe caller calls or visits the merchant. A post-call coupon may be savedautomatically or manually.

A coupon presented to a caller (or called party) in association with atelephone call may include a limitation on how or when it may beredeemed. For example, a coupon for a lunch meal may only be good until6:00 pm the same day. Another coupon may be valid until sometime furtherin the future. Similarly, a coupon may be limited to a specific area.For example, a particular coupon may only be good at a specific store orat a merchant's locations in a particular area code, city or state.

Yet further, a coupon may be limited to certain recipients. For example,a particular coupon may only be redeemable by members of a specificgroup (e.g., frequent fliers of a given airline, account holders at agiven business), people meeting specified demographic and/orpsychographic requirements, subscribers to a particular telephonecarrier, etc.

To prove his qualification to use a certain coupon, a caller may berequired to provide an account number or to manipulate his telephone totransmit a copy of a contact card evidencing his qualification.Alternatively, the caller's telephone number (e.g., via callerID) couldbe used to verify the caller's identity.

If a person's communication device is unable to display an electroniccoupon, it (or a link to the coupon) may be displayed on an associatedcomputing device.

As described above, a caller may initiate a search of contacts or one ormore telephone directories from his communication device. In someembodiments, the caller merely needs to begin spelling a name of thedesired destination. Each character that is entered is appended to anypreceding characters and submitted to any local directories (e.g., acontact list on the communication device), as well as other repositorieson a call server, an online telephone directory, an organizationalcontact list, etc.

Thus, as each character is entered, any number of contacts may beidentified and used to populate a list presented to the user on thecommunication device. The list may shrink as the search becomes morespecific and the number of matching contacts decreases, and some or allentries may be accompanied by controls the user can actuate to initiatea call to the corresponding destination.

As more and more callers generate searches and select their desireddestinations, a call server (or a third party) can analyze statisticsand trends to identify the specific destination parties that are mostlikely to be matches for a given sequence of search characters. Thisdata may be used to refine the manner or sequence in which matchingdestination parties are presented.

In some embodiments, off-device contact lists or repositories may beshared among multiple users. A shared list may be updated by any or allof the participating users or by an authorized subset of the users, whomay be relatives, friends, members of an organization, classmates, etc.Thus, an update to a shared list submitted by one participant can beautomatically shared among all participants.

Entries may, however, be screened or filtered according to a particularparticipant's desires. For example, a given participant may not wish toshare a particular contact with other participants, or may not wish tosee specific contacts that were added by another participant (e.g.,contacts that the given participant does not like).

A shared contact list may be stored at a call server or other centralsite and may be automatically searched when a list participant initiatesa search from her device. In addition, some or all contacts from ashared list may be automatically copied to a participant's local deviceor a computing device (e.g., for synchronization with an address liststored on the device).

FIG. 11 is a block diagram of hardware apparatus for facilitatingpresentation of content in association with a telephone call, accordingto some embodiments.

User interface mechanism 1110 of call server apparatus 1100 is adaptedto facilitate computing interaction between the call server apparatusand subscribers (e.g., callers, called parties), and possiblythird-parties (e.g., advertisers, content providers, call controllers).

Illustratively, a subscriber may manipulate the user interface mechanismto configure his or her profile, to register a computing device on whichcontent may be presented instead of a particular communication device(which may be identified by telephone number) that cannot present richcontent, and so on. An advertiser or content provider may manipulate theuser interface mechanism to identify (or upload) content to be presentedto a subscriber, to bid on the right to present content, etc.

Subscriber communication mechanism 1112 is adapted to host dataconnections between the call server apparatus and communication devices(and/or computing devices) of callers and/or called parties, inassociation with a current, pending, or past voice connection betweenthe parties or with an authorization by one or more of the parties toinitiate a voice connection. Thus, mechanism 1112 may be the componentthat learns of the initiation of a new telephone call and that receivesthe caller's and called party's telephone numbers.

Content selection mechanism 1114 is adapted to select a source ofcontent (or to select specific content) to be presented to a caller orcalled party pre-ring, in-call, and/or post-call. Mechanism 1114 mayselect content or a content source based on the parties to the call,such as a content provider that has paid a fee in order to have itscontent presented. Or, if non-commercial content is to be presented(e.g., in association with a call between friends), the identifiedcontent or content source may relate to an online presence of either orboth parties.

Content presentation mechanism 1116 is adapted to transmit content to acaller and/or a called party in some embodiments. In embodiments inwhich the content is transmitted from a different entity (e.g., acontent provider, a call controller operated by a commercialorganization), content presentation mechanism 1116 and/or contentselection mechanism 1114 may cooperate with the entity to arrange forthe transmission of the content. Or, control of the presentation ofcontent may be handed off to an assigned call controller in place ofcontent presentation mechanism 1116.

Call filtering mechanism 1118 is adapted to filter calls based on anydesired criteria. For example, calls (or data transmissions) that areinbound to a subscriber may be filtered based on the originating number,to block calls from telemarketers, spammers, and/or other undesirableparties.

In other embodiments, functions performed by the various mechanisms maybe distributed among a different number of mechanisms.

FIG. 12 is a block diagram of a call server for facilitatingpresentation of content in association with a telephone call, accordingto some embodiments.

Call server 1200 of FIG. 12 comprises processor 1202, memory 1204, andstorage 1206, which may comprise one or more optical, solid-state,and/or magnetic storage components. Call server 1200 may be coupled(permanently or temporarily) to keyboard 1212, pointing device 1214, anddisplay 1216.

Storage 1206 of the call server stores logic that may be loaded intomemory 1204 for execution by processor 1202. Such logic includesbusiness logic 1222, data connection logic 1224, content selection logic1226, and call screening logic 1228. Additional logic may be stored andexecuted in other embodiments.

Business logic 1222 comprises processor-executable instructions forauctioning or selling an opportunity to have content presented tocommunication devices (and/or computing devices) in association with atelephone call, or for otherwise generating revenue in return forpresenting content to callers and/or called parties.

Data connection logic 1224 comprises processor-executable instructionsfor establishing, maintaining, and terminating data sessions withcommunication and/or computing devices, to receive notification of callevents, serve content, retrieve content from a party's communicationdevice, etc.

Content selection logic 1226 comprises processor-executable instructionsfor selecting a source of content, or specific content, to be presentedto a party to a telephone call. If presentation of content is to becontrolled by an entity other than call server 1200, content selectionlogic 1226 (or another component of the call server) may select a callcontroller to manage the content presentation.

Call screening logic 1228 comprises processor-executable instructionsfor filtering, screening, and blocking calls placed to (or from) asubscriber. Calls may be blocked (or allowed) based on an identity ofthe other party or the nature of the call (e.g., spam, telemarketing,adult content).

Payment Information Associated with a Telephone Call

In some embodiments, one or more payment mechanisms are implemented inassociation with a telephone call or other communication connection.Additional payment information may also be provided, such as details ofa transaction for which payment is being made, a receipt, userauthentication/verification, etc. The additional payment information maybe provided with the payment mechanisms, beforehand or afterward.

In these embodiments, a payment effected using an electronic mechanismmay be necessitated by or at least related to the call. For example,during a call the caller (or a called party) may express an interest inpurchasing something, and the payment information/mechanism process maybe triggered by the same party or by another party to the call (e.g., amerchant, a payee, a payment processor). In this scenario, one or morepayment mechanisms may be presented to the payor (which could be eithera caller or a called party) during or after the call (e.g., while theparties still have a voice connection or after the voice connection isterminated).

In addition, in some scenarios a party may activate a payment mechanismbefore a call or without any voice call being established. For example,a caller may call a specified telephone number associated with one ormore payment mechanisms, a payment processor that offers at least onemechanism, or a merchant or vendor that will receive proceeds of thepayment. The caller may use one or more available mechanisms to pay abill, make an installment payment, or satisfy some other existing debtbefore talking to a called party or even without talking to a calledparty or a representative of a called party (e.g., if the called partyis an organization).

Alternatively, a call server, call controller, or other entityassociated with a payment mechanism, payment processor, or amerchant/vendor may call a party's communication device (e.g., at apredetermined or pre-scheduled time, upon notification of acorresponding transaction or debt) and offer the payment mechanism toallow the called party to make a payment.

It will be understood that references to parties engaged in a callencompass the entity that initiated the call and any entity thatreceived the call. An “entity” may therefore be an individual person orsome kind of organization, such as a business, a government agency, anot-for-profit concern, etc. In the latter cases, the term “party” mayrefer to the organization and/or a person engaged in the call on behalfof the organization.

A payee or other entity that hosts, initiates, triggers, or invokes apayment mechanism may be call server 130 of FIG. 1, call controller 230of FIG. 2, call server apparatus 1100 of FIG. 11, call server 1200 ofFIG. 12, or some other computing component associated with orcooperating with an organization seeking or facilitating payment from apayor. In addition, a payor may proactively trigger or initiate aconnection with such an entity using his or her smart phone, portablecomputing device, or some other computing or communication device.

FIG. 13 depicts collection of payment information from a payor accordingto some embodiments. In these embodiments, when terms of a transactionhave been arranged—such as a pizza order—the payor may be offered anynumber of payment mechanisms, depending on which mechanisms the payee(e.g., a vendor, a merchant) accepts, which mechanisms are supported bythe payor's device and communication service provider, which mechanismsthe payor has configured on his or her device, etc. In the illustratedscenario, payment information window 1310 is displayed to offer thepayor three options—PayPal®, Google Mobile Wallet, and credit/debitcard. In other scenarios, any number (i.e., 1 or more) of the sameand/or different options may be offered (e.g., Apple Pay®, GoogleWallet™, Samsung Pay®).

Depending on the transaction, a payor may initiate payment via aselected payment mechanism before or after all details of thetransaction are arranged. Thus, some embodiments allow transactiondetails and payment information to be arranged together or separately,and may occur before, during, or after a call between two parties.

In some implementations, a payor may pre-select one specific paymentmechanism for all transactions, may select specific mechanisms to usefor particular merchants or types of transactions, or may otherwisepre-determine which mechanisms are to be offered or used. Thus, in somesituations, a payment process or payment information process may proceeddirectly to activation or implementation of a specified paymentmechanism, instead of first requiring a payor to select a mechanism. Apayment mechanism selected (or pre-approved) for a particulartransaction or type of transaction may also be applied to relatedservices, such as shipping, service charges, guarantees (e.g., regardingservice, quality, delivery), etc.

In the embodiments of FIG. 13, after the payor selects a paymentmechanism, the payment process or payment information process proceedsnormally according to the procedure(s) associated with the mechanism.Thus, the payor may be required to login (to authenticate himself orherself), select a financial account (e.g., credit card, debit card,bank account), provide a password, PIN, CVC (Card Verification Code), orsome other security code, etc. If a payment mechanism was pre-selectedand/or pre-configured by the payor, some of this information (e.g.,which credit card to use, credit card number) may be automaticallysupplied by the payor's device (e.g., the application that generatedand/or displayed window 1310).

The payor may also be prompted for other details, such as billingaddress, delivery address, telephone number, electronic mail address,and so on, to the extent such information was not already provided andis not pre-programmed or pre-specified and available from his or herdevice, or is needed to verify the payor's identity.

In embodiments in which the user's/payor's device includes a GPScomponent or other component that can provide trusted data regarding thedevice's location, time zone, current time, user status, and/or otherfactors, additional information may be captured as part of the paymentprocess. For example, the application or service that captures thepayment information may report, along with the other informationprovided by the payor (such as credit card number, PayPal ID), the timeand/or location information of the payor's device, a manually enteredsignature (e.g., traced on a touch-screen component of device 1302), afingerprint scan (if device 1302 includes a fingerprint sensor), etc.Illustratively, this information may be used by a fraud-detectionalgorithm of a merchant or payment processor, may be used to verify thepayor's identity, and/or may be used for other purposes.

If the payor's device includes a fingerprint sensor or other biometricsensor (e.g., retina scanner, voice analyzer), that component may beactivated during or after a transaction conducted by the payor. Forexample, after the payor initiates a purchase in a brick-and-mortarestablishment (i.e., not an online store or marketplace), a request foridentity verification may be transmitted to the payor's device while thepayor is interacting with a sales agent of the establishment or aftersuch interaction. The identity verification may be performed or managedby a trusted intermediary, by the payor's communication serviceprovider, by the payee, or some other entity. The verification mayinvolve comparing the solicited fingerprint (or other biometricinformation) with an exemplar associated with the payor's chosen paymentmechanism (e.g., a particular credit card or debit card).

Similarly, the payor's biometric sensor may be used to verify his or heridentity in association with an on-line purchase. For example, the payormay register his or her biometric data ahead of time, such as byproviding an exemplar fingerprint via his or her device (online or at abrick-and-mortar establishment), and that exemplar is saved forcomparison with a verification version provided at the time of atransaction or as part of the payment process.

In some embodiments, a payor (a caller or a called party) may conduct apayment process in association with a voice call. In someimplementations, for example, the payor's device is caused to visuallydisplay (e.g., on a touch-screen display component) representations ofone or more payment mechanisms (e.g., as shown in FIG. 13). If this isdone during a call, the other party (e.g., an agent or operatorrepresenting a merchant or vendor) may direct the payor to select apayment mechanism or means from the displayed options. The payor mayselect a desired option by touching a corresponding icon, swiping his orher payment card (if the device is equipped with a reader), taking aphoto of the payment card, identifying an account for making payment, ortaking some other action. The payor may also be prompted to enter asecurity code (e.g., a CVC, a PIN) and/or details such as expirationdate, billing address, shipping address, or electronic mail address,etc.

The other party may acknowledge selection and/or execution of thepayment process, or such acknowledgement may be displayed on the device,during or after the call.

Content Sharing in Association with a Telephone Call

In illustrative embodiments, content presented to an operator or user ofan electronic device may be personal, professional, commercial, or ofsome other nature. One party to a call or other type of communicationconnection established as discussed herein may select content for eitheror both parties to view or experience (or some or all parties, if thereare more than two), or different parties may select content for otherparties to view or experience. For example, during a delay inestablishing the communication connection, and/or during or after theconnection, content displayed only on one party's device may betransmitted to or retrieved by another party's device and displayed forthat other party.

Thus, in one illustrative embodiment, one party accesses local or remotecontent (e.g., by browsing to a source or host of the content), beforeor during a call involving another party, and then shares that contentwith the other party. This sharing arrangement may involve contentpresented on the one party's device (e.g., a first device) beingtransmitted to the other party's device (e.g., a second device) from thefirst device (and through a call server or call controller ifnecessary), may involve the source of the content simultaneouslytransmitting the content to both the first device and the second device,under control of either or both parties or devices, or may involveidentifying the content to the second device and causing that device toaccess the content.

In some embodiments, a party can annotate, highlight, elide, rearrange,draw upon, navigate, browse, fill in a form, or otherwise change thepresentation of content shared with another party. Such changes may beapplied only to the other party's interaction with the content, or mayalso propagate to additional parties (e.g., someone who receives themodified content from the other Party).

In some implementations only the sharing party (e.g., the “one” partyabove) or the party with whom the content is shared (e.g., the “other”party above) can annotate or modify the presentation; in otherimplementations, either party can annotate or modify the presentation.Similarly, in some implementations the party with whom content is sharedmay be able to terminate the presentation of content on their devicewithout requiring the sharing party's consent.

While sharing content, parties may be able to converse verbally and/ortextually (e.g., via a chat interface), and/or one or both of them maybe provided with video or a still image of the other. These options maybe separately configurable by or for each party, or one party maycontrol the options. Video presented pre-ring, in-call, and/or post-callmay be two-way or one-way. In particular, each party may view the otherparty (or parties) or one party may view another party without thatother party viewing the one party. In addition, video presented to aparty may be live or recorded.

Purposes for sharing content between parties may vary from oneimplementation or scenario to another, and the nature of theirinteraction may also vary. For example, the parties may co-browsecontent that at least one of them wants to explore, with one of themdirecting navigation at one time, and possibly another party controllingpresentation at another time. Thus, one of the parties may guide anotherthrough shared content, may demonstrate operation of an application orthe device on which content is presented, or may otherwise provide somesort of instruction or guidance, which may be described as “assistedsharing.” As another example, one party may operate a camera attached to(or part of) his or her computing or communication device, perhaps tocapture an ongoing event or something of interest or concern, and sharethe resulting images and/or video with another party. The images/videomay be recorded or stored before they are shared, or may be shared inreal-time or near real-time, as they are captured.

In an illustrative embodiment of assisted sharing, a first partyinteracts with a second party (e.g., a personal shopper, a salesperson,an agent, a concierge, a recommendation service, an expert or anindividual licensed/certified in a particular area of knowledge, acustomer service representative) that helps the first party locatesomething (e.g., information, a product, a service), select from amongmultiple options (e.g., versions of a product, levels of a service,solutions to a problem), configure a selected option (e.g., color orsize of a product, term or breadth of a service, action to take toresolve or ameliorate a problem), and/or make some other decision. Inthis embodiment, either the first party or the second party mayfacilitate or control presentation of content at a given time, tonavigate their displays to or within a particular website, to annotatetheir displays, to view different offerings, to configure a selectedoffering, to display a specific subject of discussion (e.g., anelectronic or mechanical device requiring repair or diagnosis, a crimescene or other situation requiring analysis, a medical image or scan),etc.

In-call content during an assisted sharing session may comprise aninterleaved sequence of content items contributed or identified by thetwo parties (or the two parties' devices). For example, the in-callcontent may include dialog between the parties, alternating selectionsof images (e.g., to finalize a selection or configuration of something),etc.

In some implementations, this assisted sharing embodiment may commencewith a communication connection between the parties, in which casepresentation of the content may begin for both parties after they areconnected, and may be initiated by either party. As another option, thefirst party may view some initial content alone, but then activate anapplication or a control that initiates the assisted sharing, or place acall that reaches the second party and then choose to initiate theassisted sharing. As yet another option, the second party may contactthe first party (e.g., with a call, via electronic mail, via message(text or otherwise)) when the second party identifies a product orservice with which the first party needs assistance or that is known orbelieved to be of interest to the first party, and either party mayinitiate the assisted sharing.

As indicated above, during assisted sharing, or while an assistedsharing session is being initiated or established, a party may selectpertinent configuration options, such as which level or type ofassistance is desired; whether audio, video, imagery, other media (orcorresponding devices, such as a microphone or a camera) are enabled;how the media are configured (e.g., whether video is one-way orbi-directional); whether and when to terminate the session; selection ofa payment mechanism (if a payment is required); etc. A delay inestablishing an assisted sharing session may be implemented to allowconfiguration of the session, to allow a party to open content to beshared, to establish a call associated with the session, to transmit theshared content to or toward another party, and/or for some other reason.

In addition to pre-call identification of content to be shared (e.g.,for assisted sharing), during the call a party may identify furthercontent to be shared, by navigating the display of shared content or byselecting other (e.g., local) content to be shared with the other partyor parties. Further, any party may identify content to be displayed toanother party after the call is terminated. Content shared among partiesmay reside on some or all of the parties' devices prior to it beingshared, and/or may be delivered to a given party's device at any time(or to a location from which it is directly or indirectly accessible tothat device), including before, during, and after a communicationconnection between the parties.

In an illustrative implementation of assisted sharing, a first party mayseek assistance with locating, configuring, or obtaining a desiredproduct or service, and may share some initial content (e.g., a webpage, an electronic mail message, a text message, a picture, a video, ahyperlink) with some type of shopping assistant able to assist someonein making a purchase. Subsequently, the assistant may control (e.g.,select, navigate, annotate) some or all content presented to the firstparty, by following links in the initial content, by navigating toanother web page or website, etc.

The assistant may also, however, select additional content to bepresented to the first party during or after the call, such as contentdepicting other purchase options, accessories, details of a purchase,payment options, etc. Thus, assisted sharing may be implemented to helpa person make a purchase, and content shared between the parties orselected by one party for presentation to the other, may encompass anyrelated content, from any relevant source.

In another illustrative embodiment of assisted sharing, one or moreapplications on a communication device may be enhanced with controls forinitiating an assisted sharing session with an assistant. The assistancethat will be provided may relate to use or operation of thecorresponding application, may relate to navigation of content via theapplication, may facilitate purchase or subscription to the applicationor a related service, may diagnose or solve a problem related to theapplication or content accessible via the application, or may be of someother nature.

Depending on the application, a control for initiating assisted sharingof content may be preconfigured to establish a communication connectionwith a representative of the application (or the organization thatprovides or supports the application), with an agent of a call center(e.g., a call center that provides agents supporting multipleapplications), or with some other representative, and may cause theassisted sharing to begin immediately when the representative isconnected, or sometime after the connection is established.

Real-Time Call Control and Agent Selection

In some embodiments, a system, method, and apparatus for presentingcontent in association with a communication connection (e.g., atelephone call) provide for real-time control of the connection, viadynamic call routing for example. In these embodiments, the voice andcontrol/signaling channels of a telephone call are separated, such thatthe voice channel may continue to be handled by the appropriatetelephone carrier, but the routing of the call is handled by an entityexternal to the carrier's network, such as a call processor, a callserver, or a call controller described herein, or an entity thatoperates a call processor, a call server, or a call controller.

As used herein, the term “real-time” indicates that control of thecommunication connection is exercised as the connection is formed (e.g.,to select and apply desired routing). In particular, the system orapparatus responds to discrete events (e.g., initiation of thecommunication connection, receipt of signaling from a telecommunicationcarrier's network) as they occur or with close temporal proximity (e.g.,within milliseconds). Near real-time (or “near-time”) control of acommunication connection may also (or instead) be exercised, in whichactions or responses may be slightly delayed, without exceeding thescope of embodiments described herein.

The voice channel of a real-time controlled telephone call may be routedto an agent, operator, or other representative of a called party (e.g.,via POTS or Plain Old Telephone System, via VoIP or Voice over InternetProtocol), who may be selected based on information associated with thecall (e.g., caller ID), the caller, and/or available representatives,such as (but not limited to) their locations and/or local times. Therepresentative's handling of the call may be aided by making usefulinformation available to the representative via a computing deviceoperated by the representative (e.g., information about the caller,information about a good or service desired by the caller).

U.S. Pat. No. 7,418,092 (the '092 patent), entitled Virtual Call Center,describes how real-time call control may operate in someimplementations, and is incorporated herein by reference.

FIG. 14 illustrates an environment in which content can be presented toa caller and/or a called party in association with a call controlled inreal-time, according to some embodiments. In some implementations, thisenvironment may be considered a virtual call center (or, alternatively,a virtual contact center) because it may support routing/control ofcalls to representatives of any number of called parties, and therepresentatives need not be co-located with the call centercommunication equipment.

In the illustrated environment, communication gateway 1402 receivestelephone calls from callers after they are routed through a LocalExchange Carrier (LEC) or other entity or entities. The call may beconveyed via the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), via VoIP(Voice over Internet Protocol), or some other communication technology.Gateway 1402 notifies call controller 1410 of a new call, and routes asignal/control channel of the call to the call controller 1410, whichinstructs the gateway where to terminate the voice channel of the call(e.g., a selected agent 1440, such as agent 1440 a). Gateway 1402 mayinclude components for receiving the call, routing or terminating thevoice channel, notifying the call controller, and/or taking otheraction; alternatively, it may operate in a cooperative manner with suchentities to perform the functions described herein. In some embodiments,call controller 1410 (or a system that includes the call controller)comprises gateway 1402.

Call controller 1410 includes network interface 1412 for receivingnotification of a call (from gateway 1402) and identifying to thegateway a destination or termination point for the call's voice channel(e.g., a selected agent's communication device). Call router 1414executes routing logic to select the destination, which may includeidentifying available agents, identifying the caller, matchingattributes/characteristics of the caller and available agents (e.g.,language, age, gender, goods/services desired by the caller,goods/services with which the agents are familiar), determining a(likely) purpose of the call, and/or other action.

Agent interface 1416 of call controller 1410 establishes a dataconnection with a computing device operated by the selected agent. Thedata connection may be used to provide the agent with information aboutthe caller (e.g., name, preferences, past orders, physical or mailingaddress, electronic mail address, telephone number), and may also beused by the agent to retrieve information for use during his or hercommunication with the caller (e.g., to obtain product information, toplace an order), via call controller 1410 and/or other sources (e.g.,via the Internet, not shown in FIG. 14).

Each agent 1440 is associated with a communication device (e.g. atelephone), which may receive calls routed from gateway 1402 via thePSTN and/or VoIP, and which allows the agent to converse with callers,and a computing device for supporting the agent's interaction with acaller. Although embodiments are described as implemented to receivecalls, in other embodiments, an agent may place a call to a privateindividual, thereby establishing the communication connection in thereverse manner.

FIG. 15 is a flow chart demonstrating a method of presenting relevantcontent to a caller in association with a call, with real-time callcontrol, according to some embodiments. In other embodiments, one ormore of the illustrated operations may be omitted, repeated, and/orperformed in a different order. Accordingly, the specific arrangement ofsteps shown in FIG. 15 should not be construed as limiting the scope ofthe embodiments.

In the illustrated embodiments, a virtual call center, call server, callcontroller, or comparable entity is configured to receive telephonecalls (and possibly to initiate calls), determine a suitable terminationpoint for a voice portion of an incoming call (e.g., a particular agent,representative, or operator), route the voice channel accordingly, andfacilitate presentation of content to any or all parties to the call,pre-ring/pre-call, in-call, and/or post-call.

In operation 1502, a telephone call is received at a switch, gateway,interface, or other entity. In operation 1504, a control or signalingportion of the call is routed to a call controller or other entitycapable of determining a destination for the voice portion of the call.

In operation 1506, the call controller (or other entity) identifies atermination point for the voice channel, which may be a communicationdevice (e.g., a telephone) associated with a particular agent, as shownin FIG. 14. In different implementations, the destination agent may beselected in different ways or based on different information.

For example, if the caller is unknown (e.g., the caller's telephonenumber is unknown), the voice channel may be routed to any availableagent or the next available agent. A language spoken by the caller maybe assumed (e.g., based on the location/area code/country code of thecaller's telephone number, and a compatible agent selected. If thecaller is known (e.g., the calling telephone number is associated with aknown user or customer), the voice channel may be routed to an agentlikely to conduct a successful or friendly discussion with the caller.

In the latter case, when selecting a suitable agent the call controllermay consider factors such as the caller's geographical area (e.g., basedon the area code of his or her telephone number), language, sex, age (orage range), purchase history (with the called party and/or othervendors), frequency of communication with the called party, and/or othercaller characteristics, as well as (or instead of) attributes of agentswith whom the caller has interacted successfully or productively, arecent (e.g., the most recent) transaction between the caller and thecalled party, an account status of the caller, etc. The call controllermay also consider factors concerning the agent, such as the agent'sknown language(s), gender, age, experience, rating, availability,success rate (e.g., how successful he or she is with telephonecustomers), location (e.g., local, remote), cost (e.g., salary,commission), and/or other agent characteristics, the time of day, thequality of communication channels to the agent, the cost of routing thecall to the agent, etc.

In operation 1508, a data connection is established between the agentand the call controller or a cooperating component (e.g., an agentinterface of a call server). An initial portion of data may be providedvia this data connection, which may notify the agent of the call,identify the caller (e.g., by name, by telephone number, by accountnumber), provide a status of the caller's account or a recent orderplaced by the caller (for a good or service), and/or other information.

In some implementations, the caller may be included in at least part ofthe data connection. If the caller is calling from a smart phone, forexample, or is using VoIP from his or her computer, data communicationsmay be conducted with the caller's device to share content (e.g.,multimedia content) between the caller and agent, displayproduct/service options to the caller, receive custom data from thecaller (e.g., to personalize a product), etc.

In operation 1510, the voice channel is connected to the specifieddestination. This may cause a telephone or other communication device ofa selected agent or representative to ring. When the caller and/or theagent eventually hang-up or otherwise terminate the communicationconnection, the voice and data connections are disconnected and themethod ends.

As described in previous sections, selected content may be presented tothe caller and/or the agent/representative (and/or other parties to thecall, if any) before, during, and/or after the call. Thus, before thecall is answered by the selected agent, the caller may be offeredcontent related to an account held by the caller with the called party(e.g., an order status, an account balance), descriptions of availablegoods and services, the status of the call (e.g., how soon it isexpected to be answered), etc. As indicated above, the agent may beprovided content related to the caller, a previous transaction involvingthe caller, a script or guide for handling the call, etc.

During the call, either or both parties may be provided content relatedto their discussion, such as product/service descriptions and options,payment mechanisms, and so on. The agent, for example, may selectcontent to be presented to the caller in order to inform him or her ofavailable product configurations (e.g., size, color), to show examplesof the result of services the caller may purchase, etc.

After the call, the caller may receive a summary, transcript, or otherrecord of the discussion, a receipt for a purchase made during the call,and/or other content, while the agent may receive (and/or manipulate)data related to the transaction with the caller.

To facilitate delivery of pre-ring content to parties via acommunication connection (e.g., caller, agent), and/or for otherpurposes (e.g., to select a suitable agent), a telephone call may bedelayed as described previously (e.g., by signaling or instructing acaller's device to delay dialing the call) and/or by delaying the callafter it is received at a gateway (e.g., gateway 1402 of FIG. 4). Thus,after a call is received at the gateway, and while a call controller orother entity is being notified of the call and is selecting oridentifying a termination point for (the voice channel of) the call, thecall may be held or delayed by the gateway.

Data structures and code described in this detailed description aretypically stored on a computer-readable storage medium, which may be anydevice or medium that can store code and/or data for use by a computersystem. The computer-readable storage medium includes, but is notlimited to, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, magnetic and opticalstorage devices such as disk drives, magnetic tape, CDs (compact discs),DVDs (digital versatile discs or digital video discs), or other mediacapable of storing computer-readable media now known or later developed.

Methods and processes described in the detailed description can beembodied as code and/or data, which can be stored in a computer-readablestorage medium as described above. When a computer system reads andexecutes the code and/or data stored on the computer-readable storagemedium, the computer system performs the methods and processes embodiedas data structures and code and stored within the computer-readablestorage medium.

Furthermore, methods and processes described herein can be included inhardware modules or apparatus. These modules or apparatus may include,but are not limited to, an application-specific integrated circuit(ASIC) chip, a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), a dedicated orshared processor that executes a particular software module or a pieceof code at a particular time, and/or other programmable-logic devicesnow known or later developed. When the hardware modules or apparatus areactivated, they perform the methods and processes included within them.

The foregoing descriptions of embodiments have been presented forpurposes of illustration and description only. They are not intended tobe exhaustive or limiting. Accordingly, many modifications andvariations will be apparent to practitioners skilled in the art. Thescope of the invention is defined by the appended claims, not thepreceding disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of facilitating presentation of contenton a communication device, the method comprising: receiving notificationof a call from a first communication device; in response to thenotification: delaying routing of the call without soliciting action bya first operator of the first communication device; and selecting asecond operator of a second communication device to receive the call;separating the call into a signaling channel and a voice channel; andconnecting the voice channel of the call to the second communicationdevice after termination of the delay.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising, in response to the notification: causing to be transmitted,to one or more of the first communication device and the secondcommunication device, pre-ring content delivered before the call ringsat the second communication device.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein:the notification comprises a notification of initiation of the call; anddelaying routing of the call comprises transmitting a signal to thefirst communication device to delay dialing the call.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, wherein: the notification comprises a notification of receiptof the call at a gateway; and delaying routing of the call comprisesdelaying connection of the voice channel of the call from the gateway tothe second communication device.
 5. The method of claim 1, whereinreceiving the notification comprises receiving the signaling channel. 6.The method of claim 1, further comprising, prior to receiving thenotification: receiving the call, at a gateway, from a public switchedtelephone network; wherein receiving the notification comprisesreceiving the notification at a call controller, from the gateway; andwherein the call controller selects the second operator.
 7. The methodof claim 6, wherein connecting the call comprises: signaling thegateway, by the call controller, to direct the voice channel of the callto the second communication device.
 8. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: after connecting the call to the second communicationdevice, causing to be transmitted, to one or more of the firstcommunication device and the second communication device, in-callcontent delivered during the call.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein thein-call content comprises content displayed simultaneously, during thecall, on the first communication device and the second communicationdevice.
 10. The method of claim 8, wherein the in-call content comprisesa first sequence of content items from the first communication deviceinterleaved with a second sequence of content items from the secondcommunication device.
 11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:causing to be transmitted, to one or more of the first communicationdevice and the second communication device, post-call content deliveredafter the call is terminated.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein saidcausing to be transmitted comprises transmitting a reference to thepost-call content to the one or more of the first communication deviceand the second communication device.
 13. A non-transitorycomputer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by aprocessor, cause the processor to perform a method of facilitatingpresentation of content on a communication device, the methodcomprising: receiving notification of a call from a first communicationdevice; in response to the notification: delaying routing of the callwithout soliciting action by a first operator of the first communicationdevice; and selecting a second operator of a second communication deviceto receive the call; separating the call into a signaling channel and avoice channel; and connecting the voice channel of the call to thesecond communication device after termination of the delay.
 14. Anapparatus for facilitating presentation of content on a communicationdevice, the apparatus comprising: one or more processors; and memorystoring instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors,cause the apparatus to: receive notification of a call from a firstcommunication device; in response to the notification: delay routing ofthe call without soliciting action by a first operator of the firstcommunication device; and select a second operator of a secondcommunication device to receive the call; separate the call into asignaling channel and a voice channel; and connect the voice channel ofthe call to the second communication device after termination of thedelay.
 15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the memory further storesinstructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, causethe apparatus to, in response to the notification: cause to betransmitted, to one or more of the first communication device and thesecond communication device, pre-ring content delivered before the callrings at the second communication device.
 16. The apparatus of claim 14,wherein: the notification comprises a notification of initiation of thecall; and delaying routing of the call comprises transmitting a signalto the first communication device to delay dialing the call.
 17. Theapparatus of claim 14, wherein: the notification comprises anotification of receipt of the call at a gateway; and delaying routingof the call comprises delaying connection of the voice channel call fromthe gateway to the second communication device.
 18. The apparatus ofclaim 14, wherein receiving the notification comprises receiving thesignaling channel.
 19. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the memoryfurther stores instructions that, when executed by the one or moreprocessors, cause the apparatus to, prior to receiving the notification:receive the call, at a gateway, from a public switched telephonenetwork; wherein receiving the notification comprises receiving thenotification at a call controller, from the gateway; and wherein thecall controller selects the second operator.
 20. The apparatus of claim19, wherein connecting the call comprises: signaling the gateway, by thecall controller, to direct the voice channel of the call to the secondcommunication device.
 21. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the memoryfurther stores instructions that, when executed by the one or moreprocessors, cause the apparatus to: after connecting the call to thesecond communication device, cause to be transmitted, to one or more ofthe first communication device and the second communication device,in-call content delivered during the call.
 22. The apparatus of claim21, wherein the in-call content comprises content displayedsimultaneously, during the call, on the first communication device andthe second communication device.
 23. The apparatus of claim 14, whereinthe memory further stores instructions that, when executed by the one ormore processors, cause the apparatus to, further comprising: causing tobe transmitted, to one or more of the first communication device and thesecond communication device, post-call content delivered after the callis terminated.